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Well, 2016 has been quite a year. As it comes to a close I’ve sketched out the contents of a post-truth Christmas stocking, to remember what has been and carry into the year ahead…

Every stocking has a toy gimmic – and what better this year than the mini-boomerang? Carry in your pocket, and when you have an opinion, you can voice it as you throw the boomerang, and watch it come right back at you. It’s the portable echo chamber we all need to remind us how far ideas travel:

How about some stationery? The post-truth Christmas stocking contains your own ballot pencil – guaranteed indelible and conspiracy-proof should you wish to vote on anything:

… and if you do need to rub anything out, try the 2 sided post-truth eraser – as you rub out the facts, see the lies grow bigger and bigger :

A pocket game is always welcome, and this year it can only be Top Trumps:

Last, but not least every stocking has something sweet, and for Christmas 2016 the selection is embassy favourite, Farageo Rocher, and a post-Brexit Toblerone – a fitting reminder of the peaks and troughs of an epic year:

Last year I wrote a blog which asked ‘Does it matter that there is only one man on the Women and Equalities Committee?’, and I concluded that it probably did. While it is entirely appropriate that the majority of members of the committee are women, the absence of senior male MPs could be construed as indicating that powerful parliamentarians are not much interested in women and equalities issues. And there could have been a danger that those on the committee might be left to get on with ‘their’ business, apart from issues widely considered to be more part of the political mainstream.

Since then, following the General Election, a second man joined the Committee. More recently, The Good Parliament report was published, looking at how to make parliament more representative, diverse and inclusive. Recommendations included making single gender committees prohibited, and that issues of representativeness be borne in mind in Select Committee membership. These recommendations make a useful counterbalance to the fact that the most prestigious committees tend to be overwhelmingly male, and, that at one point, the House of Commons ended up with a Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport which was entirely white and male.

Fast forward to the news that has just emerged that Philip Davies, an MP with a record as an ‘anti-feminist’, has been elected unopposed as a new member of the Women and Equalities Committee. Is this a problem? It could be, as he pronounced on the Daily Politics today that he saw his position as similar to UKIP members sitting in the European Parliament – they disagree with everything the institution stands for, but are there to hold it to account. For a Committee whose purpose is to hold government to account on issues concerning women and equality, it seems odd to join in order to challenge its raison d’etre. Davies has asserted that it should be called the ‘Equalities Committee’, dropping the reference to women altogether. This indicates he thinks that gender equality has been achieved, which, given the continuing lack of equal political representation or equal pay, and the continuing unequal share of unpaid and caring labour – to mention just a few persistent gender issues – is a view which flies in the face of everyday evidence. Perhaps even more bothersome, though, is the fact that no-one stood against him to fill the vacant place. This would suggest that the Conservatives have attached little importance to membership of the Women and Equalities Committee, or to wider perceptions of such an unconventional candidacy. You might have thought that they would have produced a candidate who believes that the Committee needs to exist, and that women’s voices should be heard. On the anniversary of the day women voted for the first time, and just when women have reached the 30% mark among MPs in parliament, you would have thought that what the politicos call the ‘optics’ would matter.